Submission Deadline February 1, 2020.
Interested in underwriting Solo Flights? Contact Natalie Travers at Natalie@TheatreAspen.org.
Coach: An Evening with John Wooden
When legendary basketball coach John Wooden (Beau Bridges) gets a call asking about naming a court in his honor, he says his wife Nell’s name must come first. From humble beginnings to the pinnacle of success, the coach reflects on the only girl he ever loved and the journey they took together from a small town in the middle of the country to Los Angeles, California. John Wooden understood the American Dream, lived it, coached it, and inspired millions of others to pursue it.
John Wooden
Playwright
Director
Dr. Glas
Dr. Glas, a new one-person play by Jeffrey Hatcher, based on the classic Scandinavian mystery novel “Doktor Glas” by Hjalmer Söderberg and translated from Swedish by David Barrett, is the chilling, yet witty, love story of a 19th-century physician grappling with the decision of a lifetime. As told in first person account, the Doctor (Daniel Gerroll) finds himself madly in love with an unhappily married patient, who presses to see him regularly about her miserable state—pitting his passion against his morality. Ultimately, Dr. Glas is seduced into helping her in any way he can, even if it means murder.
Dr. Glas
Playwright
Director
What We Leave Behind
What We Leave Behind, with book, music, and lyrics by Jenny Giering and Sean Barry, is a courageous one-woman musical exploring what it means to live a life reshaped by illness. This story in two lives, follows a woman from her diagnosis of breast cancer, through treatment, and the onset of a mysterious new condition that robs her of her ability to function fully as a wife, mother and artist. Her journey is juxtaposed with the time before her struggles began, when life was full of daring and passion—when she and her husband together embarked on a relationship with another woman. The musical, with abundant heart and humor, acknowledges the loss that comes from serious illness, while declaring that one’s existence can still be alive with wonder and hope—if we are brave enough to embrace it.
Jenny
Book, Music, & Lyrics
Book, Music, & Lyrics
Director
Music Director
When It’s You
In Courtney Baron‘s When It’s You, Ginnifer Riggan (starring Joy Nash) has a fine life, but that’s it, just fine. Unlucky in love and recently returned to her hometown after the death of her mother, an act of violence committed by an old boyfriend forces Ginnifer to ask: How are we all connected? who are we responsible for? and How is it possible to move forward? This extremely personal, deeply moving, and often humorous story, is about the nature of loneliness, who we become in shifting times, and the courage of the human spirit to go on.
Ginnifer
Playwright
Director
JOHN WILDER (Coach, Playwright) has written and/or produced nearly 400 hours of prime-time television drama on network and cable. He has received the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Long-Form Teleplay and received WGA nominations for Best Long-Form Series and Best Episodic Drama. He has received two TV Academy Emmy nominations for Best Dramatic Series and received Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture Made for Television and for Best Drama Series. He has received the Western Writers of America Award for Best Western Screenplay and Best Western Television Film; two Western Heritage Awards for Best Television Film; and the Chicago International Film Festival Award for Best Television Series. He had the honor and privilege of mounting the biggest television event of its time, the epic twenty-six-hour mini-series of James Michener’s “Centennial” for NBC, adapting the bestselling novel and Executive Producing the film for Universal Pictures. He worked with Larry McMurtry to write and Executive Produce a sequel to Mr. McMurtry’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel, creating the seven-hour mini-series “Return to Lonesome Dove” for CBS. He adapted and Executive Produced John Jakes’ best-selling novel, “The Bastard,” as the premier film for the ground-breaking OPT channels, forerunner of Cable TV; was chosen again by James Michener to adapt and Executive Produce his best-selling novel Texas for ABC; was selected by best-selling author Anne Rice to adapt her novel “The Feast of All Saints,” which he Executive Produced for Showtime. He created and Executive Produced two critically acclaimed series for Warner Brothers, “The Yellow Rose” (NBC), and “Spenser: For Hire” (ABC), on which he teamed with the Dean of Crime Fiction, Robert B. Parker. He first came to prominence as a writer/producer/director while guiding the top-rated, critically acclaimed police drama “The Streets of San Francisco”
Daniel Gerroll (Dr. Glas, Dr. Glas) has appeared on television and film in both the United Kingdom and the United States, although his greater contribution has been to the stage in both countries. In New York City, he has won the Theatre World Award for The Slab Boys and Knuckle, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Translations and the Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance. His Broadway credits include Plenty, The Homecoming, Enchanted April and High Society. In the UK he was seen in London in Once a Catholic (Royal Court and West End) and a number of plays in repertory at the Queens Theatre in Harrogate, Yorkshire. Off-Broadway he has appeared frequently at Second Stage, Manhattan Theatre Club and Roundabout Theatre Company. Gerroll’s television credits include “Miami Vice,” “Burn Notice,” “Cheers,” “Knots Landing,” “Seinfeld,” “Sisters,” “Blue Bloods,” “Sex and the City,” “Law & Order,” “Code Black” and “The Starter Wife.” On film Gerroll has appeared in Still Alice, Chariots of Fire, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, 84 Charing Cross Road, Drop Dead Fred and Big Business. A relationship with the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis began with his playing Henry Higgins in Pygmalion in 2004 and continued with his creating the role of Scrooge in the Guthrie’s updating of its annual tradition and most recently playing Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. In 2017 he played the lead in the first New York revival of Shadowlands playing C. S. Lewis. Later that year her appeared in Claudia Rankine’s play The White Card (ART Boston), Frost/Nixon (Bay St Theatre) and Skylight (ACT Seattle).
Jeffrey Hatcher (Dr. Glas, Playwright). Hatcher’s plays have been produced on Broadway, off-Broadway, in regional theaters throughout the United States and in dozens of countries abroad. They include Three Viewings, A Picasso, Never Gonna Dance, Scotland Road and Compleat Female Stage Beauty, as well as adaptations of A Confederacy of Dunces, The Turn of the Screw, The Government Inspector, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Tuesdays with Morrie (with Mitch Albom). He has written the films Stage Beauty, Casanova, The Duchess and A Slight Trick of the Mind starring Ian McKellan. For television he has written episodes of “Columbo” and “The Mentalist.” His awards include the Rosenthal New Play Prize, the Frankel Award, the Charles MacArthur Fellowship Award, Edgerton Grant, NEA, McKnight and Jerome Foundations, the Barrymore Award for Best New Play (A Picasso), L.A. Critics Circle Award for Best Adaptation (Cousin Bette), and the 2013 Ivey Award for Lifetime Achievement. He is a member and/or alumnus of The Playwrights Center, Dramatists Guild, Writers Guild and New Dramatists and lives in Minnesota with his wife Lisa Stevens and their son Evan.
Lisa Peterson (Dr. Glas, Director) is a two-time Obie Award-winning writer and director and the Associate Artistic Director at Berkeley Rep where previous projects include An Iliad (2012), which Lisa co-wrote with Denis O’Hare, and which won Obie and Lucille Lortel Awards for Best Solo Performance, Mother Courage, The Fall, and Antony & Cleopatra. For California Shakespeare Theater, Lisa directed King Lear, The Winter’s Tale, All’s Well That Ends Well, and Love’s Labour’s Lost. Other recent West Coast productions include Hamlet, Henry IV Pt 2, and Othello (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); and Chavez Ravine (Ovation Award for Best Production), Palestine New Mexico, Electricidad, Water, The House of Bernarda Alba, Body of Bourne, and Mules (Mark Taper Forum). In New York, Peterson has directed The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek; Bexley, OH(!), or, Two Tales of One City; Traps; and Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (Obie Award for Direction); Slavs! (Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness); and The Waves adapted from Virginia Woolf by Peterson and David Bucknam (Drama Desk nomination) all at New York Theatre Workshop; King Liz (2nd Stage Uptown); Hamlet in Bed (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater); To the Bone (Cherry Lane Theatre); The Patron Saint of Sea Monsters and The Chemistry of Change (Playwrights Horizons); The Poor Itch, The Square and Tongue of a Bird (the Public Theater); The Fourth Sister and The Batting Cage (Vineyard Theatre); Collected Stories (Manhattan Theatre Club); Shipwrecked, Motherhood Outloud, The Model Apartment (Primary Stages); Birdy adapted from the William Wharton novel by Naomi Wallace (Women’s Project); and Sueno by Jose Rivera (MCC). In Canada, she directed The Philanderer (Shaw Festival) and The Trouble with Mr. Adams (Tarragon). Lisa has directed world premieres by many major American writers, including Tony Kushner, Beth Henley, Donald Margulies, Jose Rivera, Ellen McLaughlin, Mac Wellman, Marlane Meyer, Polly Pen, Stephen Belber, Naomi Wallace, and many others. She regularly works at the Guthrie Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Center Stage in Baltimore, Long Wharf, Yale Rep, Hartford Stage, Intiman, Seattle Rep, Arena Stage, O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Midwest Playlabs, Ojai Playwrights Conference, and Sundance Theatre Lab and is a Usual Suspect at NYTW, a member of Ensemble Studio Theater, and on the executive board of SDC.
Kate Baldwin (What We Leave Behind, Jenny). was recently seen in Second Stage Theatre’s production of the new musical Superhero for which she received a Lucille Lortel nomination for her performance. Prior to that, she co-starred opposite Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, David Hyde Pierce, Victor Garber in the hit Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly!, for which she was nominated for a Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critic’s Circle awards.
Jenny Giering (What We Leave Behind, Book, Music, & Lyrics). Jenny Giering’s current musical commissions include Summerland (book & lyrics by Sean Barry) for Chicago Shakespeare Theater; and Alice Bliss (book by Karen Hartman, lyrics by Adam Gwon, directed by Mark Brokaw; 2019 Weston Award; 2019 Orchard Project Residency recipient) for Playwrights Horizons. Her other scores include The Mistress Cycle (produced at the New York Musical Theater Festival, also produced at Apple Tree Theater, Jeff Award Nomination); Crossing Brooklyn (commissioned and produced by The Boston Music Theater Project, also produced by The Transport Group; Kleban Award for best libretto, ASCAP/Dreamworks Musical Theater Workshop); Alice Unwrapped (commissioned by Premieres, Inc. and produced at the Zipper Theater with Jennifer Damiano); Saint-Ex (2011 World Premiere at The Weston Playhouse Theater Company, Weston VT, Weston Playhouse New Musical Award, ASCAP/Dreamworks Musical Theater Workshop, Sundance’s White Oak Workshop). Her incidental scores include Gertrude & Claudius (Barrington Stage Company, directed by Julianne Boyd), Red Velvet (Chicago Shakespeare Theater, directed by Gary Griffin), The Tempest (Shakespeare Theater, directed by Ethan McSweeney), Long Day’s Journey into Night (Weston Playhouse, directed by Ethan McSweeney), As You Like It (Chicago Shakespeare Theater, directed by Gary Griffin, Jeff Award Nomination), Elizabeth Rex (Chicago Shakespeare Theater, directed by Barbara Gaines, Jeff Award Nomination), Silent Sky (Theaterworks/Palo Alto, written by Lauren Gunderson, directed by Meredith McDonough). Jenny has participated in the Sundance UCross and Theater-Maker’s Residencies, The TheaterWorks/Palo Alto Festival of New Musicals, Goodspeed Opera House’s Mercer Colony, and the Weston Playhouse and Rhinebeck Writers’ Retreat. She was artist in residence at Harvard 2003 and at the York Theater Company in 2012. Her awards include The Jonathan Larson Prize, The Constance Klinsky Prize from Second Stage Theater Company, The National Art Song Award, New Dramatists’ Frederick Loewe Award, and several NEA and NAMT production grants. She is the only artist to receive Chicago Shakespeare’s Tilles Music Chair twice. She and Adam Gwon are the only artists to win the Weston Award multiple times as well. Jenny has an AB from Harvard and an MFA from the Graduate Musical Theater Program at New York University. More info at: 
Sean Barry (What We Leave Behind, Book, Music, & Lyrics) wrote the book and lyrics for Saint-Ex (music by Jenny Giering), which was selected by the Sundance Institute for the 2008 Theatre Lab at White Oak, awarded the 2010 Weston Playhouse New Musical Award, and received a 2011 NEA grant and a NAMT New Musical Development award. Saint-Ex premiered in 2011 at the Weston Playhouse in Weston, VT and was selected in 2012 by the York Theatre Company for the NEO (“New, Emerging, Outstanding”) Reading Series and in 2013 for the ASCAP/DreamWorks Musical Theatre Workshop hosted by composer Stephen Schwartz. Sean’s fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications, including Mississippi Review, Smoke, and Boston Review. He has been in residency at the Southampton Writers Conference, the Ucross Foundation, the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, the Rhinebeck Writers’ Retreat, and the Johnny Mercer Writers’ Colony at Goodspeed, and was writer-in-residence at CAP21 in New York. Sean is currently at work on Summerland, a new musical commissioned by Chicago Shakespeare Theatre (Jenny Giering, music). What We Leave Behind originated in 2016 at the Sundance Institute Theatre Program in Utah and was developed at the 2018 Weston Playhouse Writer’s Retreat. He is also the author of Cuttings, a novel.
Tracy Brigden (What We Leave Behind, Director) is excited to be making her Theatre Aspen debut. She served as Artistic Director at City Theatre Company in Pittsburgh for 16 years directing over 50 productions of new plays including world premieres by Christopher Durang, Keith Reddin, Adam Rapp, Jeffrey Hatcher and many others. Recent work includes Time Flies by David Ives at Barrington Stage starring Debra Jo Rupp, The Roommate at Cincinnati Playhouse, A Doll’s House, Part 2 at Arden Theatre, the American premiere of Oil by Ella Hickson at Olney Theater Center, Hand to God at Theaterworks Hartford and Heisenberg by Simon Stephens at Pittsburgh Public Theater starring Anthony Heald. Prior to City Theatre, Tracy served on the artistic staffs of Manhattan Theatre Club and Hartford Stage Company. She recently received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from Point Park University and finished her first full-length play, Stage Struck, about the author of Dracula, Bram Stoker. 
Lynne Shankel (What We Leave Behind, Music Director) is an award-winning orchestrator and arranger living in the New York City area. Lynne was recently the music supervisor/arranger/orchestrator for Allegiance starring Lew Salonga and George Takei on Broadway. Her diverse musical background has led her to write orchestrations and arrangements for everyone from Chita Rivera, the New York Pops and Raul Esparza to Tony Award winner/Bon Jovi member David Bryan and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. She was the music director/arranger for the Broadway production of Cry-Baby, as well as the resident music supervisor for the Tony-winning revival of Company, for which she conducted the Grammy Award-nominated cast album. She was the musical director/arranger for the Off-Broadway hit Altar Boyz, for which she received a Drama Desk Award nomination for orchestrations. Lynne received a second Drama Desk nomination for her work on The Extraordinary Ordinary (by Paul Loesel and Scott Burkell) in 2019. In 2012, she received a Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Orchestrations in San Diego for her work on Allegiance. In 2014, Lynne was the orchestrator/arranger for the world premiere of Chasing the Song (music by David Bryan, book by Joe DiPietro) at La Jolla Playhouse. She was the orchestrator/music director for the acclaimed revival of Once on This Island at the Papermill Playhouse (directed by Thomas Kail), and the music supervisor, arranger and co-orchestrator for Bare the Musical. She also collaborated with lyricist Jon Hartmere to provide the new songs for that production which are featured on her new album, “Bare Naked”. Proud graduate of the University of Michigan.
Courtney Baron (When It’s You, Playwright). Baron’s play Eat Your Heart Out, developed with Primary Stages at Perry Mansfield, premiered as part of the Humana Festival of New American Plays (Adam Greenfield, dir.) and was subsequently produced regionally. Her play A Very Common Procedure was produced at MCC (Michael Greif, dir.), the Magic Theater (Loretta Greco, dir.) and as part of the Cherry Lane Theater Mentor Program. Here I Lie was produced as part of Rising Phoenix Rep’s Cino Nights. Consumption and Purge are both commissions from the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Consumption was produced at the Guthrie Theater Lab. She previously collaborated with the Keen Company on her plays To Know Know Know You for Keen Teens and John Brown’s Body with Keen Americana. Her short film 18 (Michelle Bossy, dir.) premiered at the Austin Film Festival. She was co-executive producer/writer for “Almost There” on DirecTV’s Audience Network. 
Kent Nicholson (When It’s You, Director). With a hand in nearly three decades of new works development on both coasts with pioneering organizations such as Playwrights Horizons and TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Nicholson’s New York directing credits include 9 Circles (The Sheen Center), Long Story Short (Prospect Theater), Five Flights (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), Wet (Summer Play Festival), and Marry Harry (NYMF, American Theater Group). Regional: Sweeney Todd, Once, Amadeus and A Light in the Piazza (South Coast Repertory), How to Write a New Book for the Bible (South Coast Repertory, Berkeley Repertory, Seattle Repertory), CUBAMOR (Village Theatre), Lizzie (Theatre Under The Stars, Village Theatre), Grey Gardens, Vincent in Brixton, Ambition Facing West, and All My Sons (TheatreWorks Silicon Valley), Saint Ex (Weston Playhouse), 9 Circles, The Good German, and Jacques Brel (Marin Theater Company), Small Tragedy and Satellites (Aurora Theater Company). Kent created the New Works Initiative at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in Palo Alto, The Uncharted Writers Group at Ars Nova, and he serves on the boards of Musical Theatre Factory and Old Sound Room. Kent currently serves as Associate Producer of Musical Theater at Playwrights Horizons in New York.
